The Cloud Gets Cloudier

The hits just keep on coming for “the cloud.” Everyone these days seem to think “the cloud,” by which I mean the external storage and management of data, is the answer to every database challenge. Like Kim Kardashian, it’s famous for being famous.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, this overlooks pesky little details like:

Your data may not be safe from mechanical failure. Your data may be stored in dangerous places. Your data may be managed by dangerous people. Your cost may be much higher than the alternatives.

But now comes word of still more shenanigans surrounding the cloud. Katherine Noyes, the Senior U.S. Correspondent for the IDG News Service, reports that an Oracle whistleblower has sued the company because she was “terminated from her job for refusing to go along with cloud-computing accounting practices she considered illegal.” The article is worth reading in its entirety, and you should note that Oracle not only rejects the whistleblower’s claim, but is countersuing her for malicious prosecution.

Here’s another interesting angle to the story: the former employee alleged that Oracle was doing this “in a bid to boost the financial reports for Oracle’s cloud services business that would be ‘paraded’ before company leaders and investors.”1 If this is true, then it seems that this “parading” is part of a larger industry trend. Gartner issued a warning report in December 2015, saying flatly, “We recommend CIOs direct their organizations to never take vendor cloud revenue at face value, and evaluate vendors on their strategy and service mix.”2

As part of this bum’s rush to the cloud, a Google-sponsored study just came out entitled, “Trusting the Cloud is Good for the Bottom Line.”³ I have no doubt that the cloud is good for somebody’s bottom line - but I do doubt that it’s good for your bottom line. And so, rightly, do the senior executives queried for the study:

• Only 16% had a “very high” level of trust in the cloud.


• The level of trust has decreased for 13% of executives.


• The level of trust has remained unchanged for 33% of executives.⁴

Remember:

• No one cares about your business more than you do.


• No one cares about your data more than you do.


• No one cares about your bottom line more than you do.

So instead of following the other lemmings off the cloud cliff, it’s better to keep your IBM DB2 LUW database on premise, locally managed, and optimized. And no company is better when it comes to increasing the performance of existing systems than DBI’s patented, award-winning software tools. But don’t just take my word for it, read the case studies and you’ll see how easy and economical it is to spend less and accomplish more!

What You Must Know